1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate, generally, to managing changes in an information technology (IT) environment.
2. Related Art
In the field of information technology (IT), “change management” generally refers to a system or process for managing changes to the IT environment, for example the installing, updating, or maintaining software, hardware, servers, network devices, switches, firewalls, or any other aspect of the IT environment. Procedures have been developed for managing and coordinating such changes in an effort to reduce or mitigate problems associated with conducting such maintenance. Change management procedures may be particularly helpful in managing maintenance and/or changes performed in large-scale or enterprise scale IT environment.
Change management procedures involve manually creating maintenance work orders or job “tickets” to be performed during a maintenance period, creating a “master plan” by manually collating or concatenating the various work orders, and manually tracking and recording the performance of each separate work order during the execution of the maintenance plan. Generally, a hard copy of the master plan will be printed prior to a maintenance or change period, and marks indicating completion of various tasks or steps are made on the list, for example using highlighters, as reports of completion are received by the change manager. The reports may be made and received using an online chat system or other method of communicating progress. Manually creating the individual work orders, the master plan, and manually tracking and recording the execution of the work orders requires a certain amount of time to perform the various, manual, manpower-intensive tasks associated with the change management process. Although commercially available programs exist that assist some aspects of change management, for example Excel or other spreadsheet programs, or off-the-shelf change management tools such as BMC Software's Remedy Change Management Application (REMEDY), those programs require a certain number of manual steps or operations in the change management process. A more efficient change management process may reduce costs, improve reporting, and increase system up-time.